


A Lie for Luck

by ChaosandMayhem



Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Reymas if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 02:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12071553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaosandMayhem/pseuds/ChaosandMayhem
Summary: "I've been told this coin is lucky. You have it."In the depths of darkness, Dismas offers Reynauld a bit of lightheartedness.





	A Lie for Luck

**Author's Note:**

> 1) This fic was written for genjibunnymada on Tumblr, in thanks for all the Reymas artwork; Waffle asked for some Dismas helping Reynauld laugh and forget his troubles for a moment, and I was happy to oblige  
> 2) Red Hook Studios can portray the Highwayman as the cool, collected rogue all they want, but I also witnessed the Highwayman locking himself in the brothel for three weeks and then going on a drunken bender the very next week, so. Whose the liar here, hm?  
> 3) Thanks as always to my beta Belphegor for her quick work.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> Chaos

**A Lie For Luck**

He could handle the undead with little issue. There was nothing really to be feared from a pile of bones. Pigs? Slightly more unnerving, but meat was meat and they still bled in the end. Mushrooms were…odd, but really just plants if you thought about it. These were enemies he could stare down without flinching.

So why on earth did that mooncalf of an heir insist on sending him into the cove?

Reynauld  _ hated _ the cove. Not that he’d ever admit it. But he hated it all the same: hated the fishy smell, hated the endless  _ drip-drip-drip _ of salt water down stalactites, the purplish hue cast off mossy walls playing tricks on his mind. He hated how his heavy footfalls resounded with each puddle he stepped in: SPLISH-SPLISH-SPLASH, announcing their trek to anything that might be listening. He hated how thick the air seemed, how the moisture seemed to seep through invisible cracks in his armor, how rivulets of sweat ran down his face and made it difficult to breath inside his helmet. His well-kept armor became a prison in the cove.

Worst of all, he hated how blasé Dismas seemed about the whole thing.

Reynauld knew better than to actually believe Dismas’ carefully-crafted nonchalance. He’d worked alongside Dismas for long enough now to be able to see through his façade (and Dismas through his, unfortunately enough). The renegade knew how to hide the tremor in his voice when the torchlight flickered low, or to speak long and loud about his skill with a gun until it seemed fact that all they would need to get out of any given situation was a flintlock pistol. Dismas could break, as surely as any of them could, but he would never admit to it. He would sidestep puddles and squelching mud, feigning unconcern about the creatures lurking down here in the sea-sprayed darkness.

It was one thing to be dishonest. It was entirely another thing to be dishonest when everyone else  _ knew _ you were being dishonest.

“—so there I am,” Dismas said, puffing out each word between breaths, “surrounded on all sides by local bounty hunters—no escapes, no way of talking my way out of this, only a fistful of gunpowder left…”

On his arm Junia chuckled. She had been leaning heavily on Dismas for the past hour. Blood seeped around the makeshift tourniquet on her arm (applied with Badu’s steady hands and one of Dismas’ belts). They should not have taken her down here, Reynauld thought darkly. As a vestal she was a welcome holy companion, but she was much too young, much too… _ hopeful _ for an expedition like this. Reynauld watched the way her grip on Dismas went white-knuckled with pain and pursed his lips.

“So,” Junia said, “how did you manage to get out alive?”

“Oh, you might call it divine intervention,” Dismas said. He grinned when he heard Badu snort behind him. “What’s wrong, doc? Don’t believe in divine intervention?”

“Not where  _ you’re _ concerned, no,” Badu said. Her mask muffled her voice, but the acid was there all the same. This expedition had put Badu in a foul mood, and it was all the rest of the little band could do to assure themselves she didn’t mean it personally.  

“Usually I’d agree with you, doc,” Dismas said, “but that night—as we’re standing there, waiting for someone to move first, a huge storm swirls up—and I mean  _ huge _ , like something out of that holy book of yours—”

A blast of wind howled down the narrow corridor.

The torchlight in Reynauld’s hand flickered.

Dismas’ voice died in his throat. What little color Junia had left drained from her face. Badu and Reynauld both stood perfectly still. For a breathless instant the torchlight wavered. And then it steadied: a burning bulwark against what laid in the darkness. But fragile, very fragile.

“We must move faster,” Reynauld said. His heart thundered against his chest like some terrible drum. “Or we’re like to run out of torches.”

Dismas looked from Reynauld to the wounded Junia in dismay. But Badu made a sudden, choked noise. “Torches,” she said. “How many are left?” One of her gloved hands flew towards her pack.

“Two.” Reynauld answered automatically. But Badu’s sudden scrambling for her pack made his drumming heart skip a beat. Did they really have two torches? They had been down here in the dark for so long, letting the light guide their steps—but then had come an ambush, Junia had been injured, and in their desperate flight some of their supplies had spilled—food and trinkets, he had thought at the time, regrettable but not damning—but  _ torches _ —they  _ needed _ torches—

Badu’s shaking hands came up empty. She staggered backwards into a damp wall. “We’re out of torches. Oh, fuck me, we’re out of torches!” Her masked face snapped up towards Reynauld. “ _ You lost the damn torches! _ ”

Reynauld could feel the vein throbbing in his neck. It was not his bloody fault the bloody torches had been forgotten. Blood pounded in his ears, and his hand reflexively curled around the hilt of his sword. “It was not my intention,” he said through gritted teeth. “They must have been lost in the ambush—”

“We left you in charge of the torches!” Badu snapped. She pushed herself off of the wall and gave Reynauld a short, sharp shove.

Unfortunately for her, Reynauld was too armored to be staggered by a simple shove. A low snarl escaped him. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, the air in his helmet warm and foul-tasting. “I was somewhat busy trying to keep us all alive!”

“ _ And now you’ve condemned us all to death! _ ”

Junia burst into tears.

Her sobs rang loud and clear through the empty hall, reverberating deeper and deeper into the darkness ahead. And in that darkness, Reynauld knew, things were stirring. Dismas gave them both a hard look before lowering Junia to the ground, hushing her.

Badu just snorted. “Shut up, you mewling lamb!” 

“Leave her be, Badu.” Reynauld said softly.

“Why should I?” Badu snapped. She looked from Reynauld to the trembling Junia. Though her mask left her face unreadable, an unpleasant light shone in her eyes. “We’d move faster if we didn’t have to tend to  _ her _ .”

Her surgical knife appeared in her hand; Junia shrieked and Dismas leaped to his feet, but it was Reynauld who put himself squarely between Junia and Badu. He drew his two-handed sword and held it to Badu’s mask. “ _ You will not touch her _ .”

“ _ Enough _ .”

Dismas’ soft voice cut through the tension as cleanly as his dirk. He caught Reynauld by the wrist and forced his arm down. “There’s enough here that’s trying to kill us. Let’s not make it easy for them, hm?” He turned to the audibly-seething Badu. “The torches are gone. You’re just going to have to live with that fact. As is Junia, because no one is going to kill anyone.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look….we need a moment to sit and think. Take stock of our situation. Do we still have firewood?”

“Some,” Reynauld said.

“Then let’s douse the torch for now and make camp. We can’t be that far from the entrance to the cove. Better to eat and rest and then move forward instead of pushing ourselves and getting killed for it, hm?”

Reynauld and Badu had no retort to that, and Junia lacked the strength to protest. So they camped around a meager fire, chewing on dried meat and trying not to think about whatever slithered in the dark just out of reach. No one said anything; Reynauld, at least, did not trust his tongue to remain civil. If they made it out of here alive, he was going to have a  _ very  _ long talk with Badu. For the moment, he kept his book of Verses open on his lap and tried to read.

Badu sat across from him, the flickering flames and smoke distorting her appearance slightly. She had one of her many journals out, flipping through the pages with clear irritation. Every slight  _ fwip  _ of a page turning set Reynauld’s teeth on edge. She was doing it on purpose, busying herself with her macabre notes, probably making notes on when and how quickly they would die—whether their corpses would be any use for her wretched experiments—

Reynauld snapped his book shut. He stood and moved to the edge of the hallway, sinking down in front of a barnacle-covered doorway into the next corridor. The firelight barely reached him here; the darkness of the corridor seemed to stretch onwards forever. On and on and on without end.

Just like their time here.

With a grunt Reynauld yanked off his helmet and set it down beside him. The salty air pricked his sweaty skin, but it grew easier to breathe all the same. For a time he remained where he was, staring into the darkness waiting for them and fighting against the pounding in his heart.

Dismas was so light-footed he might have taken Reynauld unawares, but the tiny bells tinkling in his hand gave him away. Reynauld twisted to watch Dismas set his traps at the edge of their camp. Dismas didn’t look at him, but somehow he knew Reynauld was watching all the same: “It’s the only way I could get Junia to get some sleep. Old bandit senses an’ all.”

Reynauld grunted. “Is Badu…?”

“I talked her down. A little. At any rate, she’s not going to be the one to kill us all in our sleep.”

“More’s the pity.”

A faint chuckle escaped Dismas. He straightened and moved over to sit down beside Reynauld. “Fuck, I’ll be glad when we’re out of here.”

“I’m not a blushing vestal virgin, Dismas—”

“What a shame.”

“—so you don’t have to lie to me.”

Dismas sighed. He glanced at Reynauld. “All right, we’re probably fucked. We’re probably fucked harder than a three-penny whore after Yuletime.”

“You have such a way with words,” Reynauld said flatly. He pressed a finger to his throbbing temple. As a commander of armies he knew ‘probably fucked’ was not the same as ‘fucked’, but the terminology was uncomfortably close all the same. One torch, limited food, one companion gravely injured and the other more liable to let them bleed out because it’d make for an interesting observation; the odds were not in their favor. He could feel the knots of tension tightening between his shoulder blades.

“Oi. Reynauld.”

A small nudge roused him out of his dark thoughts. Dismas had lowered his scarf away from his face long enough to grin at Reynauld. He reached into his pocket and dug something out. “Here. I want you to have this.”

He pressed a small coin into Reynauld’s hand. It was a small copper coin, plain and nondescript and not worth much at all. Reynauld inspected it before arching his eyebrows at Dismas. “You’re not in the habit of giving money away.”

“Charity goes against all of my well-trained despicability,” Dismas said with a formal nod.

“And neither is this enough to pay for a headstone lest you die.”

“You’re the very soul of tact, Reynauld.”

“So, what is this?”

“A good luck charm. I want you to have it.”

Reynauld looked down at the coin in his hand before looking back up at Dismas. “Is this your polite way of telling me we’re all going to die?”

“I already told you we’re fucked.”

He looked back down at the coin in his hand. A lucky coin? No, he had no need of that—luck was something for fools to believe it, a false friend you could blame for your failures. He’d had no need for luck, not for years and years now. Skill was what kept you alive in battle. With a snort Reynauld tossed the coin over his shoulder. It landed with a clatter somewhere in the dark.

“Oh, don’t do that,” Dismas said with a sigh. And then, much to Reynauld’s surprise, he stood and went in search of the coin. After a few minutes he plopped down beside Reynauld once more, coin in hand. Without a word he slammed the coin into the ground in front of Reynauld.

Reynauld took the hint. “You really want me to have it?”

“Yes.”

“What makes it so special, anyway?”

Dismas grinned: one of his wide, feral grins that revealed his canine teeth perfectly. “Ah. Now that is a story worth telling over a pint.”

“I’m not buying you a drink.”

Dismas muttered a small curse under his breath. Then he unhooked the flask from his belt and took a long swig of whatever was inside it. “I was young and stupid—”

“As opposed to now, what with you being old and stupid.”

“Shut up. Anyway, I was young and stupid and thought I could get away with all sorts of stupid shit. I know, I know, as opposed to now.” Dismas caught Reynauld’s faint smirk and waved a hand around. “I was spendin’ all my ill-gotten wealth on cheap ale and cheaper whores. Still figuring out my tastes. Developing my discerning  _ pal-lot _ , if you will.”

Reynauld cocked an eyebrow. They all tried to use sex to needle him, as if it were something unknown to a career soldier, as if he’d walked out of the woods a holy man with no knowledge of intimacy.  _ I had a wife once, and a son _ . He dislodged the sudden rush of regret with a shake of his head. “Please don’t tell me this coin had something to do with helping you develop your palate.”

“Fortunately for you, no,” Dismas said. He planted his chin in his hand and looked off into the darkness. But for once he didn’t seem to be seeing it; he was lost in the memory of a better day. “I was making my presence known at a local brothel when a commotion started from downstairs. Seemed the local lord’s daughter had run off for a life of adventure an’ had wound up in the brothel.”

“Naturally,” Reynauld said. “And I suppose the girl you were with when the commotion started…?”

“Her teeth were too straight, that should have been my first clue. Stars above, she was gorgeous.” Dismas grinned to himself. “Raven-black hair, blue eyes, and her body—damn. Anyway, I only got in a few good minutes with that body before someone starts banging on the door, demandin’ entry.”

“Did you let them in?”

“Hell no,” Dismas snorted, seemingly amused with Reynauld’s inexperience with brothel etiquette. “There’s never a good reason for bangin’ on a brothel door. You take that tip from me.”

“Duly noted,” Reynauld said dryly. “So, if you didn’t answer the door, what did you do?”

“I flung myself out the window.”

The unexpected answer was delivered so nonchalantly Reynauld burst out laughing. He pressed a gloved hand to his mouth to stifle himself. “ _ You what _ ?!” he hissed.

“You heard me. Out the window I went.” Dismas pantomimed falling out of a window for extra emphasis. “Landed in the pig sty. Half-naked.”

Reynauld swallowed another laugh that had been rising in his throat. He could picture the scene easily enough: Dismas flinging himself out of a window to avoid trouble, only to land in a mire of mud and pig shit. Of course. Of course Dismas would. This was a situation only Dismas would find himself in, and therefore it required a Dismas solution.

“So where does the coin come in?” he asked, flipping it between his fingers as he spoke.

Dismas’ grin widened. “Well, that weren’t the end of the trouble. Y’see, the lord had brought along all his guards to retrieve his wayward child…and about half-dozen men-at-arms had just seen me leap from a window into the mud.”

Reynauld groaned for Dismas’ long-lost dignity. “Oh, by the Light…dare I ask how you talked your way out of that one?”

“So there I was,” Dismas said with a shrug, “covered in pig-shit, naked from the waist-down, sore from having jumped out of a fucking window, everyone inside the brothel is screaming—I look the sergeant dead in the eye, I say ‘sorry about that, urgent business an’ all—and of course he demands to know what sort’ve business requires a window escape, an’ I tell ‘im—well, when a man’s gotta piss, a man’s gotta piss, y’know?”

Reynauld only just managed to swallow a snort of laughter. “What did you do?”

“What do you think I did? I start pissin’.” A wide grin broke across Dismas’ weathered face when he saw the way Reynauld’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “I was pissin’ like my life depended on it. Which…it sort’ve did, really.”

Reynauld ducked his head between his knees, struggling to get his laughter under control. What was wrong with him? Now was neither the time nor the place for laughter. This was  _ stupid _ . The story was  _ stupid _ . It should not have been enough to send him, the trained soldier, into quiet hysterics. And yet—

Maybe it was because he’d had so little to laugh about lately. But the shadows seemed to have shrunk away for the moment. The distant slithering had stopped. And the knot of tension between his shoulders had loosened. For the moment, he was nothing more than a man trading fireside stories of misspent youth with a friend. For the moment, the world felt very close to mundane. And for Reynauld, mundanity was just fine.

Beside him Dismas continued on: “—an’ I’m standing there for a good, oh, five minutes or so, jus’ letting it all out, six other men staring at me, no clue what to do—an’ when I’m finished the sergeant tells me that’s the longest and the furthest he’d ever seen a man piss. He let me go on my way an’ gave me that coin for my troubles.” He nodded at the coin in Reynauld’s hand.

Reynauld groaned even as he flipped the coin through his fingers. “This is not a lucky coin. This is a pissing coin.”

Dismas opened his mouth to retort, considered Reynauld’s point, and then shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, “but it’s brought me luck ever since.”

Reynauld raised an eyebrow at that before gesturing to the entirety of the damp surroundings. “This is what your luck brought you,” he said flatly.

“M’still alive, aren’t I? That has to count for something.” With that Dismas got to his feet. “I’m going to scout ahead, see if there’s anything of use.”

Instantly the vague sense of good cheer around Reynauld vanished. He looked between Dismas and the gaping darkness ahead. They’d lost more than one good adventurer to darkness like that. He could hear the slithering noise again, and below that a distant, persistent hum. Faint as it was it made his ears ache. “No,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Only if you’re some sort’ve knight clunkin’ around in a suit of armor,” Dismas said. He grinned at the dour look Reynauld gave him. From his belt he drew his flintlock and his dirk. “We charming rogues, on the other hand? Light as a butterfly’s kiss.”

“Remember that one for your atrocious poetry later,” Reynauld muttered. Technically he had no authority over Dismas, but that didn’t stop him from getting to his feet and pressing a hand to Dismas’ shoulder. “Be careful. Please.”

“Friend, I wouldn’t have lived this long if I weren’t some semblance of careful,” Dismas said, his thumb ghosting over the trigger of his flintlock as he did so.

Admittedly that was true. Nevertheless Reynauld found himself extending the coin out to Dismas. “Will you…require your luck back?”

Dismas shook his head. “Keep it. That way I’ll have to come back for my luck.” With that, he gave Reynauld another fanged grin, yanked his scarf over his nose and mouth, and started forth into the darkness.

Reynauld remained where he was until he could no longer see Dismas’ faint outline in the gloom. Only then did he retreat to the relatively safety of the campfire to sit between the sleeping Junia and Badu. For a time nothing could be heard but their gentle breathing, the crackle of the fire, and that damnable distant humming.

He should do something. Hone and polish his sword. Read from his book of Verses. Go through Badu’s notes and sabotage them. Something. Anything was better than the sitting, the waiting, fighting against the dread fear that Dismas would not make it back. Unconsciously he ran his thumb along the edge of the coin. If not for Junia’s injury he would have followed Dismas into the dark of the dungeon and dragged him back. He clenched his fist in sudden irritation.

The coin throbbed against the palm of his hand.

Slowly Reynauld unfolded his hand again. He stared down at the coin with brow furrowed. Dismas’ luck. He had left his luck here. He had to come back for it. He  _ had _ to. Luck was the only thing left to them down here in the dark.

Reynauld allowed himself a moment of despair. Then he pocketed the coin and sat forward to stir the fire. Either Dismas’ luck would guide him back…or it would not.

Reynauld had never known a longer night than that one. He had survived sieges and pitched battles, long treks across desert and mountain and glen—but this sitting, this useless  _ waiting _ , it worn on him in a way exhaustion itself did not. Something inside him stretched taut as the hours crept by and the fire dimmed. His eyes burned in the light. His heart beat like a war drum in the hollow of his chest. Hisses and snarls grew louder in the silence, and once Reynauld caught a glimpse of yellowed eyes staring at him from the dark.

After that he kept his drawn sword over his knees and his back to the wall; drops of water dripped down his neck, but it was the price to pay for an extra sense of security. The fire provided the barest sense of protection. If it died— _ when _ it died—the creatures would be on them. Reynauld licked his chapped lips.

He would kill Junia first, he decided. Kill her quickly, a merciful death compared to what the monsters would do. Badu too, if he had the chance. And then he would take as many of those slithering, gaping abominations with him as he could. And maybe—if Dismas made it out alive—then that would be victory enough—

The fire gave a faint hiss. Something moved in the dark.

Reynauld stood and replaced his helm. “Come on then, you foul thing—”

“Now now, that’s no way to speak to the man who’s just saved your hides.”

Out of the gloom stumbled Dismas. He was deathly pale and fish guts splashed down his front. But he was alive. He was alive and grinning when he stepped into the light. Without further ado he dumped the sack he was carrying down in front of Reynauld. With a soft  _ thump _ , one of the abandoned torches rolled out of the sack.

Reynauld’s breath caught in his throat. He bend down to grab the torch; he had to hold it in his hand, had to feel the rough wood for himself to confirm he was not dreaming. When he held the torch firm in his hand he looked back to Dismas. “You doubled back for the torches,” he said, fighting the vitriolic mix of relief and fury in his stomach. “You could have died!”

Dismas shrugged as he collapsed down in front of the fire. “It was  _ could have died _ or  _ certain death _ . I took my chances.” His hands shook badly as he spoke. Dismas tucked his hands under his armpits and curled into himself. Rivulets of sweat ran down his cragged face.

Without a word Reynauld sank down beside him. He pressed a hand to Dismas’ shoulder. A thousand religious platitudes rose on his lips, but all that managed to escape was a simple “Thank you”.

Dismas managed a strained smile. “Don’t thank me. You were the one holding onto all my luck.”

…

“I see Dismas wasted no time in spreading his ill-gotten wealth.”

Badu no longer wanted to kill them all, but the acid was in her voice all the same. She sat across from Reynauld in the barracks, another book open on her lap. She had pushed her mask up off of her face slightly, allowing Reynauld to see the way her lips twisted.

Reynauld had been idly playing with the coin as he read from his Verses. It was his preferred method of relaxing after an arduous trek into the dungeons. Dismas had taken Junia to the sanatorium before vanishing into the tavern for a drink; this left Reynauld to deal with Badu alone. As such he took a moment to raise his eyes to Badu. “I beg your pardon?”

Badu gestured dismissively to the coin. “That’s my coin.”

Reynauld frowned. “No,” he said as he snapped the book shut, “this is Dismas’ lucky coin.”

“Dismas  _ lies _ , Reynauld,” Badu said, in the same tone one might use with a child. “He didn’t have a penny to his name last week. Then I made the mistake of playing dice with him—lost two hundred copper coins to him.”

Without a word Reynauld stood and left the barracks. His long strides took him through the dilapidated hamlet, from the barracks to the tavern. The tavern was well-lit and roaring with adventurers on the inside, but fortunately for him the object of his fury sat on the steps outside the tavern nursing a drink.

Dismas had lifted his mug to his mouth, but lowered it when he saw Reynauld stalking towards him. “What did I do this time?”

Reynauld stopped short in front of Dismas. “You lied to me!”

It shouldn’t have bothered him so; after all, Dismas  _ lied _ . Dismas lied to everyone. He should have known better. But it infuriated him, somehow, the fact that Dismas had sat down next to him, had spun that lie so easily—all in an effort to make Reynauld forget the darkness for a moment. Did Dismas think him a child? Someone to be coddled with lies and lucky charms?

Dismas squinted up at Reynauld. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Without a word Reynauld held up the coin.

“Oh.”

Dismas leaned back against the steps. His dark eyes flicked from the coin to Reynauld’s impassive face. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t lie about the story—that’s all true. The coin part I just sort’ve…inserted.”

“Why?” Reynauld demanded. He scowled when Dismas just shrugged. “Do you think me someone who needs coddling?”

“No,” Dismas snapped. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I just—we needed something to get us through the cove, all right? Both of us. If it was enough to believe that that old coin was lucky—” he gestured to the coin in Reynauld’s hand “—then it was enough to believe we could survive. An’ we did. So maybe the coin really is lucky, eh? Or maybe it isn’t.” Again he shrugged. “But we lived, didn’t we?”

Reynauld looked at him for a hard moment. He curled his hand into a fist, the coin pressing hard against the flat of his calloused pain. It was nothing but a cheap coin won in a dice game. But—he couldn’t help but to remember the way it throbbed in his hand, way down deep in the dark when nothing else had bolstered him. For a moment it had felt like the coin really did contain Dismas’ luck.

Dismas lied to everyone. Dismas lied to himself. But a lie for luck, a lie for comfort in the dark…lies not meant unkindly…perhaps those he could forgive. And perhaps—if a lie was believed hard enough and long enough—perhaps the lie might become the truth.

So with that in mind Reynauld settled himself down beside Dismas. Dismas offered him the tankard, but Reynauld waved his hand away. He stared over the tops of the trees and into the distant darkening sky. He was exhausted, suddenly, for a reason he couldn’t quite place. “Do you suppose we’ll ever get out of here?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Dismas lied. 

 


End file.
